Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal owns a 7 percent stake in News Corp — the parent company of Fox News — making him the largest shareholder outside the family of News Corp CEO Rupert Murdoch. Alwaleed has grown close with the Murdoch enterprise, recently endorsing James Murdoch to succeed his father and creating a content-sharing agreement with Fox News for his own media conglomerate, Rotana.

Last weekend, at the right-wing Constitutional Coalition’s annual conference in St. Louis, Joseph Farah, publisher of the far right WorldNetDaily, blasted Fox News for its relationship with Alwaleed. Farah noted correctly that Alwaleed had boasted in the past about forcing Fox News to change its content relating to its coverage of riots in Paris, and warned that such foreign ownership of American media is “really dangerous.” ThinkProgress was at the speech and observed attendees of the conference murmuring and shaking their heads in disapproval:

FARAH: There’s a flaw, a real compromise in Fox that you need to understand. And if you care about national security, you especially need to be attentive to it. And that is that Fox News parent company is News Corp has a significant ownership by a Saudi prince that many of you will be familiar with because right after 9/11 this prince very famously offered Rudolph Giuliani a big multi-million dollar check to rebuild and Giuliani told him to stick the check where the sun don’t shine because this guy was basically blaming America for what happened on 9/11. Well this guy owns a very significant percentage of the News Corp and has let the world know that he can get things taken off Fox News when he finds them objectionable and has in the past. And I really believe this is really dangerous for America.

Brigitte Gabriel, another speaker at the conference, said that Alwaleed was recently interviewed by Fox News’ Neil Cavuto. Gabriel angrily denounced the interview as a “darling high school reunion”: “All of the sudden, Neil Cavuto is interviewing him like a buddy-buddy because he is the boss.” Indeed, in the “rare” interview Alwaleed gave last month, he reaffirmed his “alliance” with the Murdoch family and told Cavuto why he has a personal stake in influencing American politics:

– On continuing America’s dependence on fossil fuels, Saudia Arabian oil: “Saudi Arabia’s strategic alliance with the United States will continue and as a derivative of that, the link with the oil between oil and dollars is there. The bulk of our GDP, the bulk of budget comes from oil and oil is still a dollar based commodity.” Fox News is an opponent of clean energy, and has aggressively attacked efforts to move America away from a fossil fuel dependent economy.

– On opposing financial reforms, bank responsibility fee: “In a way I’m conflicted because I’m invested in Citigroup but at the more global picture, I’m a big supporter of the United States. I believe taxing the banks right now is not the right thing at all. It’s like you have a patient coming out of an ICU.” Alwaleed owns a $4.3 billion dollars stake in Citigroup, a massive bank that spent millions lobbying against financial reform last year.

With the Citizens United Supreme Court decision essentially freeing corporations to spend unlimited amounts in campaigns, theoretically Alwaleed can pressure the American corporations he owns stock in to spend millions — or even billions — of dollars attacking candidates he opposes. In addition to his powerful Fox News outlet, Alwaleed and other foreign investors have potentially unprecedented power to impact American elections.

Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal owns a 7 percent stake in News Corp — the parent company of Fox News — making him the largest shareholder outside the family of News Corp CEO Rupert Murdoch. Alwaleed has grown close with the Murdoch enterprise, recently endorsing James Murdoch to succeed his father and creating a content-sharing agreement with Fox News for his own media conglomerate, Rotana.

Last weekend, at the right-wing Constitutional Coalition’s annual conference in St. Louis, Joseph Farah, publisher of the far right WorldNetDaily, blasted Fox News for its relationship with Alwaleed. Farah noted correctly that Alwaleed had boasted in the past about forcing Fox News to change its content relating to its coverage of riots in Paris, and warned that such foreign ownership of American media is “really dangerous.” ThinkProgress was at the speech and observed attendees of the conference murmuring and shaking their heads in disapproval:

FARAH: There’s a flaw, a real compromise in Fox that you need to understand. And if you care about national security, you especially need to be attentive to it. And that is that Fox News parent company is News Corp has a significant ownership by a Saudi prince that many of you will be familiar with because right after 9/11 this prince very famously offered Rudolph Giuliani a big multi-million dollar check to rebuild and Giuliani told him to stick the check where the sun don’t shine because this guy was basically blaming America for what happened on 9/11. Well this guy owns a very significant percentage of the News Corp and has let the world know that he can get things taken off Fox News when he finds them objectionable and has in the past. And I really believe this is really dangerous for America.

Brigitte Gabriel, another speaker at the conference, said that Alwaleed was recently interviewed by Fox News’ Neil Cavuto. Gabriel angrily denounced the interview as a “darling high school reunion”: “All of the sudden, Neil Cavuto is interviewing him like a buddy-buddy because he is the boss.” Indeed, in the “rare” interview Alwaleed gave last month, he reaffirmed his “alliance” with the Murdoch family and told Cavuto why he has a personal stake in influencing American politics:

– On continuing America’s dependence on fossil fuels, Saudia Arabian oil: “Saudi Arabia’s strategic alliance with the United States will continue and as a derivative of that, the link with the oil between oil and dollars is there. The bulk of our GDP, the bulk of budget comes from oil and oil is still a dollar based commodity.” Fox News is an opponent of clean energy, and has aggressively attacked efforts to move America away from a fossil fuel dependent economy.

– On opposing financial reforms, bank responsibility fee: “In a way I’m conflicted because I’m invested in Citigroup but at the more global picture, I’m a big supporter of the United States. I believe taxing the banks right now is not the right thing at all. It’s like you have a patient coming out of an ICU.” Alwaleed owns a $4.3 billion dollars stake in Citigroup, a massive bank that spent millions lobbying against financial reform last year.

With the Citizens United Supreme Court decision essentially freeing corporations to spend unlimited amounts in campaigns, theoretically Alwaleed can pressure the American corporations he owns stock in to spend millions — or even billions — of dollars attacking candidates he opposes. In addition to his powerful Fox News outlet, Alwaleed and other foreign investors have potentially unprecedented power to impact American elections.

OMG somebody wrote an article, lets all swing to the left and become socialists because of the atricle written by....Oh we don't know that, but thats O.K. because the mystery writer had it published in a notable .....Oh sorry we don't know that it was actually published. Thats O.K. because someone has uncovered the fact that a non American has investments in American companies.

Holy shit the world as we know it is comming to an end and its the fault of capitalism.

Capitalism is an economic and social system in which capital, the non-labor factors of production (also known as the means of production), is privately owned; labor, goods and capital are traded in markets; and profits distributed to owners or invested in technologies and industries.

WTF does that article have to do with capitalism other than the fact that a guy with money to invest, invested in a company that will hopefully bring him a decent return on his investment?

Are you trying to say that foreign investors is an evil thing and that it shouldn't be allowed to happen? Do you know what would happen if foreign investors didn't invest anything in our countries businesses?

Capitalism built this country and helped make it what it is. If it wasn't for capitalism we wouldn't have but one type of anything because nobody would be allowed to make anything better to compete with the first persons product, and if the government controlled everything like you must think it should, there wouldn't be any incentive to make anything better or come up with a new idea since the government wouldn't allow it anyway. If they did they would get a big cut of it up front and then tax your earnings so badly that it wouldn't be worth your time and effort to do it. After all they have to pay for all the programs they came up with to make your life better because they know better than you do on how you should live your life and spend your money, ect.....

Maybe you should retitle this thread to i'm a socialist asshat and think capitalism is the devil.

Oh, one more thing, you spelled "Hey" wrong in the title..............liberal socialist!

Capitalism is an economic and social system in which capital, the non-labor factors of production (also known as the means of production), is privately owned; labor, goods and capital are traded in markets; and profits distributed to owners or invested in technologies and industries.

WTF does that article have to do with capitalism other than the fact that a guy with money to invest, invested in a company that will hopefully bring him a decent return on his investment?

Are you trying to say that foreign investors is an evil thing and that it shouldn't be allowed to happen? Do you know what would happen if foreign investors didn't invest anything in our countries businesses?

Capitalism built this country and helped make it what it is. If it wasn't for capitalism we wouldn't have but one type of anything because nobody would be allowed to make anything better to compete with the first persons product, and if the government controlled everything like you must think it should, there wouldn't be any incentive to make anything better or come up with a new idea since the government wouldn't allow it anyway. If they did they would get a big cut of it up front and then tax your earnings so badly that it wouldn't be worth your time and effort to do it. After all they have to pay for all the programs they came up with to make your life better because they know better than you do on how you should live your life and spend your money, ect.....

Maybe you should retitle this thread to i'm a socialist asshat and think capitalism is the devil.

Oh, one more thing, you spelled "Hey" wrong in the title..............liberal socialist!

If you would have READ the article you would understand that it points out that a foreign investor has adequate influence in a major media source and can now control the information provided to the people over the public airwaves. This could happen because of the very views you so staunchly defend. So I want to know how you defend a foreigner controlling the media on our airwaves. I guess it's okay to you that he censor the news to suit his agenda? What if this happened to all of the media? What then? What if Toyota bought up ALL of our media and refused to advertise the Big 3. and had huge specials on major defects in their vehicles. What then? Are you okay with that? You MUST be, otherwise there is a hole in your capitalist viewpoint.

Me, a socialist... Right. I'm an officer in one the worlds largest financial institutions, publically traded, I earn bonuses, and I've made a fair amount of money on stocks, and you call me a socialist... What kind of job you got there smart guy?

OMG somebody wrote an article, lets all swing to the left and become socialists because of the atricle written by....Oh we don't know that, but thats O.K. because the mystery writer had it published in a notable .....Oh sorry we don't know that it was actually published. Thats O.K. because someone has uncovered the fact that a non American has investments in American companies.

Holy shit the world as we know it is comming to an end and its the fault of capitalism.

Not to fear the MIghty Obama will save everything by Sucking Ass....

Yeah, just what I expected from you Toes... You did not respond at all to the point of the article. Typical.

Yeah, just what I expected from you Toes... You did not respond at all to the point of the article. Typical.

The article had no point just an opinion, an opinion with no real depth into the real problems we face, primarily liberal and the left selling out America, and the Constitution, in exchange for socialism and some kind of f**ked up world government.
What they described is exactly what you support and promote every time you say we have a world market now, or we must include the entire world in our actions.
That is unless your swinging right, and now support America first, and can admit that we could survive and prosper with more isolationist views.
This would mean you must denounce your belief in foreign health care being superior to ours. You must support the right of an individual to to have ambition, and be rewarded based on what they produce. You must also publicly announce that you believe there are no entitlements to anybody based on race, religion, sexual preference, or gender.

Oh, one more thing, you spelled "Hey" wrong in the title..............liberal socialist!

How do you know I didn't want to say Het? You know, like "Het this", or "Het that". Kind of like zarf.

Gawd, you mustn't play Scrabble much.

Yeah, I'm a liberal, but you have no idea what a socialist is. I am quite clear on the definition because I have to decide whether or not it's going to be my belief system, and it clearly is not. You've proven you would deny historical fact and quotes from the framers of fascism as to the definition, so your definition of socialism is likely flawed as well. I bet you don't believe there really was a holocaust either...?

How do you know I didn't want to say Het? You know, like "Het this", or "Het that". Kind of like zarf.

Gawd, you mustn't play Scrabble much.

Yeah, I'm a liberal, but you have no idea what a socialist is. I am quite clear on the definition because I have to decide whether or not it's going to be my belief system, and it clearly is not. You've proven you would deny historical fact and quotes from the framers of fascism as to the definition, so your definition of socialism is likely flawed as well. I bet you don't believe there really was a holocaust either...?

I believe there was a holocaust, I can't believe there are enough stupid people in this country to get Obama elected

The article had no point just an opinion, an opinion with no real depth into the real problems we face, primarily liberal and the left selling out America, and the Constitution, in exchange for socialism and some kind of f**ked up world government.
What they described is exactly what you support and promote every time you say we have a world market now, or we must include the entire world in our actions.
That is unless your swinging right, and now support America first, and can admit that we could survive and prosper with more isolationist views.
This would mean you must denounce your belief in foreign health care being superior to ours. You must support the right of an individual to to have ambition, and be rewarded based on what they produce. You must also publicly announce that you believe there are no entitlements to anybody based on race, religion, sexual preference, or gender.

And finally you must scream OBAMA SUCKS ASS

You're still avoiding the quesion. A question was clearly inferred in the article, and that is whether or not it's acceptable for a foreign national, by way of this supreme court decision, to be able to not only control the content of our news media, but to be able to finance any candidate they want with no limits to how much they spend? So are you in support of the idea of a candidate loyal to this guy to accept, oh, say, $50 billion dollars and full access to Fox network to run for, and likely win, the presidency of the U.S.?

"If you would have READ the article you would understand that it points out that a foreign investor has adequate influence in a major media source and can now control the information provided to the people over the public airwaves. This could happen because of the very views you so staunchly defend."

You mean kind of like Obama's people do with CNN, NBC, MSNBC, CBS, and every other liberal news organization?

"If you would have READ the article you would understand that it points out that a foreign investor has adequate influence in a major media source and can now control the information provided to the people over the public airwaves. This could happen because of the very views you so staunchly defend."

You mean kind of like Obama's people do with CNN, NBC, MSNBC, CBS, and every other liberal news organization?